This is the eighth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms [part I | part II | part III | part IV | part V | part VI | part VII]. On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part VIII, we focus on the tab.

This is like watching a dog with three legs and claiming "He's fine. He doesn't jump that much anyway."

If there's one thing humans are good at it's coping with (artificial) limitations and working around them. Like app developers using tabs to work around the suckiness in the underlying DE/OS.

The point is that _because_ the taskbar blows chunks at >5 windows (give or take) people are basically emulating a more powerful environment by opening and closing apps repeatedly.

When I only had the taskbar, I'd find myself running about 5 windows at a time. Pushing some apps in the system tray I got to about 10. Using tabbed apps and counting each tab as a window gives me a chance to have about 20 open at a time and still feel comfortable. With virtual desktops this number increases to something between 30 and 60, depending on the situation.

Just about any person I've talked to who has used multiple desktops finds going back to a single one painful to say the least. Even OSX Leopard and Gnome, products with a strong focus on simplicity, have virtual desktops.

I find it very hard to believe that about 50 windows ought to be enough for everybody (tm), some constant of nature like the speed of light or pi...
Likewise I find it naive to assume that Joe Average who started out with single tasking and now runs several programs at a time will never want to run more - not even if advancements in DEs allow him to.

If you want to have 55+ windows open be my guest. I never said there should be a hard limit. Though i doubted wether we are seriously addressing the needs and greeds of the average computer user or we are academics f*cking ants for our own purposes.

don't be too sure about that. I have to work with "average joes" that can barely use computers. they seem to think minimizing a window means it is closed. I've seen people with brand new machines crawling with all 2gb of ram used up and several gigs of swap because they had, literally, 2-300 windows open for explorer, IE, and various programs.

I get called to come get "rid of the viruses" and all i do is reboot the machine

don't be too sure about that. I have to work with "average joes" that can barely use computers. they seem to think minimizing a window means it is closed. I've seen people with brand new machines crawling with all 2gb of ram used up and several gigs of swap because they had, literally, 2-300 windows open for explorer, IE, and various programs.

I get called to come get "rid of the viruses" and all i do is reboot the machine

And charge them $60 for having "the knowledge" necessary to solve the problem?